In vitro hormonal responsiveness of human blood and bone marrow cells in non-lymphocytic leukemia

Abstract

Glucocorticoid, β-adrenergic agents and prostaglandin E 2 are all known to modulate the proliferation and differentiation of granulocyte-monocyte colonies (CFU-C). However, in man, acute non lymphoid leukemia (ANLL) has been shown to respond in a highly variable manner to glucocorticoid therapy. Therefore, we have measured in vitro on blood and bone-marrow cells of two patients with ANLL several parameters including glucocorticoid receptors, percentage of cells in the S phase of the cell-cycle, effects of drugs on nucleoside incorporation, cell number and viability. Our results led to the following conclusions: (i) the examination of blood and bone marrow samples in a given patient does not necessarily give similar results in terms of response to drugs and levels of glucocorticoid receptors, (ii) in the same patient, the effect of any agent varies greatly throughout the incubation period and is also variable from one cell subpopulation to another, (iii) prostaglandin E 2 markedly enhances the level of [ 3H]-thymidine incorporation in the two patients tested. As steroid-induced prostaglandin production has been recently implicated in the differentiation of myeloid cells, this may explain the stimulatory action of glucocorticoids demonstrated both in vivo and in vitro in ANLL patients.